domingo, 30 de noviembre de 2014

When Osama bin Laden was killed in cold blood in Pakistan and many demanded to see his death-photos for verification, President Obama refused and said, "That's not who we are," which begs the question: Who are the Americans?

Are Americans the ones who annexed the Philippines, denied them their own republic and then engaged in a war (1899-1902) with those who opposed them at the cost of 1.4 million Filipino lives? Are they the ones who burned villages, murdered their entire populations, and rounded up all boys over ten and young men and had them executed? Is that who they are?

Are Americans the ones who supported, supplied with arms and intelligence-gathering and bolstered many, brutal South and Central American dictatorships like Batista and Pinochet whose death-squads callously murdered tens of thousands of people in the 1950s, '60s and '70s simply because they believed in social justice by way of a social-minded government?

Are Americans the ones who experimented with atomic weapons on Hiroshima which killed over 80,000 people - including innocent men, women, and children - who were not actively involved in the war and then repeated its massacre on Nagasaki? Hiroshima had no military value and American bomber pilots were warned not to drop conventional bombs on it lest they ruin their precious experiment. Is that who they are?

There are 7.2 billion people on this planet but the United States
fears only one man — Vladimir Putin. That’s because on virtually every
front of the new Cold War, the Russian president is walloping the
collective challenge of the West. Fear can make you do strange things —
for the second year running, Forbes magazine has named Putin as the
world’s most powerful person.

It is said about the Russians that they take a long time to saddle
their horses, but they ride awfully fast. After patiently nursing the
collapsed Russian economy back to health from 1999 to 2007, Putin
started pushing back against the western encirclement of his country. In
Syria, Crimea and Ukraine, the West has faced humiliating setbacks and
melted away at his approach. In the high-stakes game of energy, it will
be Russian — not western — pipelines that will dominate the Eurasian
landmass.

But instead of scorekeeping, a more instructive exercise would be to
try and understand how Putin has managed to keep Russia ahead in the
game.

Mat finish If history has taught us anything, it is that Russia has a habit of grinding down its enemies

A former head of GCHQ has urged the government to publish legal
guidance governing intelligence sharing arrangements with the US, amid
concerns that the UK might be complicit in targeted killing by American
drones.

In a letter to foreign secretary Philip Hammond seen by the Bureau,
Sir David Omand and several prominent parliamentarians asked the
government to consider “disclosing the Guidance to Intelligence Officers
and Service Personnel applicable to the passing of intelligence
relating to individuals who are at risk of targeted lethal strikes.”

The government has not officially acknowledged that such guidance
exists. When asked for a comment on the letter, an FCO spokesperson
said: “we do not comment on intelligence issues. Our intelligence agencies operate under the law and in accordance with our values.”

Last month a report on the security impact of drones by the
Birmingham Policy Commission, which Omand now chairs, highlighted
concerns that the UK’s close intelligence sharing relationship with the
US might “inadvertently” cause it to collude in counter-terrorism
operations deemed contrary to international law.

The report drew a distinction between the use of drones in
established theatres of conflict such as Iraq and Afghanistan and the
US’s covert campaigns in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.

Ben Emmerson QC, who leads an ongoing drones investigation for the
UN, told a parliamentary meeting last year that it was “inevitable” that
the UK had given the US information used in drone strikes.

Documents recently disclosed by Edward Snowden show that the NSA’s fourth-largest cable tapping program, codenamed INCENSER, pulls its data from just one single source: a submarine fiber optic cable linking Asia with Europe.

Until now, it was only known that INCENSER was a sub-program of WINDSTOP and that it collected some 14 billion pieces of internet data a month. The latest revelations now say that these data are collected with the help of the British company Cable & Wireless (codenamed GERONTIC, now part of Vodafone) at a location in Cornwall in the UK, codenamed NIGELLA.

For the first time, this gives us a view on the whole interception chain, from the parent program all the way down to the physical interception facility. Here we will piece together what is known about these different stages and programs from recent and earlier publications.

The cables tapped at NIGELLA by GERONTIC under the INCENSER and WINDSTOP programs

“Monster Road” explores the wildly fantastic worlds of legendary clay animator Bruce Bickford, best known for his collaborations with the late Frank Zappa. Tracing the origins of Bickford’s maladjusted disposition and quirkily iconoclastic worldview, the film journeys back to his childhood in a competitive household during the paranoia of the Cold War and examines his relationship with his father, George, a retired aerospace engineer who is facing the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. Along with a glimpse into the world of a true visionary, the film reveals a story that like childhood itself, is at once scary and whimsical, bleak and incomprehensible…

Last year saw the highest number of terrorist incidents since 2000, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index
released by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Worldwide, the
number of terrorist incidents increased from less than 1,500 in 2000 to
nearly 10,000 in 2013. Sixty percent of attacks last year occurred in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

Timothy Alexander Guzman, Silent Crow News–The
world is watching what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri. After the
announcement by the grand jury that Officer Darren Wilson was
acquitted for the shooting death of Michael Brown, angry residents took
to the streets of Ferguson and other towns and cities across the U.S. to
protest police brutality. The U.S. government has the FBI, the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) along with the Ferguson police
department and the Missouri National guard ready to confront the angry
protesters with force. Michael Brown’s murder is not the only incident
that sparked riots. There have been other similar incidents involving
police brutality such as the Rodney King beating by the Los Angeles
Police Department in 1991 that also sparked riots. The Police used
excessive force against the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and
other anti-Establishment protests across the U.S. In 1997, NYPD
officers sodomized a Haitian immigrant by the name of Abner Louima with a
broken-off broom handle after he was arrested during an altercation
between the police and patrons outside a Brooklyn nightclub. He was
hospitalized and most of the police officers involved were not found
guilty because of insufficient evidence, except for one of the officers
who received a 30-year sentence. Following the verdict of the Michael
Brown case, another African-American man was recently shot and killed by
an NYPD officer in a housing project in East New York, Brooklyn. White
Americans have also been victims of police brutality. In 2012, Kelly
Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man with schizophrenia was beaten to
death by two veterans of the Fullerton Police Department in California.
Both men were acquitted by the grand jury. Although statistics do show
that minorities are more likely to get harassed (by Stop and Frisk in
NYC for example), arrested and even murdered by the police. The United Nations Human Rights Committee issued a report on human rights abuses in the United States which included the epidemic of police brutality. It stated:

“I think the US especially is keen on encircling Russia and overthrowing the Putin regime and bringing back a kind of satellite government they had in the nineties under Yeltsin.” -James Petras

It was about one year ago, that the Euromaidan protests sprang up in Ukraine.

Ostensibly triggered by the rejection by President Yanukovych of an Association Agreement with the European Union, the mass movement grew in size and became a force for Ukrainian officials to reckon with.

You know the fix is in when a suspect who shot an unarmed man voluntarily provides four hours of un-cross examined testimony to a grand jury without taking the Fifth.

On August 9, Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson gunned down 18-year-old African American Michael Brown. Since that fateful day, people across the country have protested against racial profiling, excessive police force, and the failure of the criminal justice system to provide accountability.

The nail in the coffin of "equal justice under law" came on November 24, when the St. Louis County grand jury refused to indict Wilson for any criminal charges in the shooting death of Brown. In a virtually unprecedented move, St. Louis Prosecutor Robert McCulloch in effect deputized the grand jurors to sit as triers of fact as in a jury trial.

In a normal grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor presents evidence for a few days and then asks the grand jurors to return an indictment, which they nearly always do. Of 162,000 federal cases in 2010, grand juries failed to indict in only 11 of them, according the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Police
line up in the street outside the police department in Ferguson, Mo.,
Nov. 25, 2014. Police say 45 people were arrested overnight in a second
night of demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., that were smaller and not as
violent as they had been on Monday, following a grand jury decision not
to indict a white police officer for killing an unarmed black teenager.
(Whitney Curtis/The New York Times)

Ebola - Fear, Lies, and The Evidence Please read the statement below before watching this video.

1. We are fully aware that we are completely out of sync with the
mainstream news cycle by releasing this video right now (at the end of
November 2014). You may be inclined to believe that we are arriving late
to the party (some seem to be of the impression that what is happening
in Africa is less important than the few cases that have arrived in
first world countries so far), but the evidence we have assembled
indicates that we are actually early. I hope we are wrong.

2. I
personally am not at all comfortable with the information I am
presenting here. During the entire process I have struggled with two
contradictory fears: a. the fear of making an error (hence the ultra
long research period) and b. the fear of being right. In the end I would
have probably refrained from diving into this topic right now if it
weren't for the fact that getting this information out could help those
in affected regions. As such I feel compelled to speak out on this even
if it is not well received at first. This is also why when the main news
cycle was focused on the isolated cases in Dallas and in New York we
instead made a video on the topic of fear (http://youtu.be/9pnqWGBYP7Q -
It seemed clear to me at that time that the primary lesson exposed by
the first round of this crisis was the public's propensity to panic.

3. We poke fun at a large number of people in this video. Some will be
insulted, but this really isn't our intention. Though the broken logic
being mocked is real, the main purpose for the mockery is to lighten the
psychological effect of the information we are presenting. If you
observe closely you'll notice that I poke fun at myself as well.

4. There was a great deal of information that we could not fit into this
video. At one point the total length was approaching an hour, but some
of the topics that we touched upon in these early versions really needed
a much more in-depth treatment. We decided that it was better to trim
it down to 33 minutes and save the other issues for future videos
(follow us on our various social media outlets to be kept up to date).
We did however embed numerous subtle references to those topics in the
animations. You will need to watch the video several times and press
pause at various points to catch everything.

It
was a Malaysian jet, carrying Malaysian passengers, flown by Malaysian
pilots, yet after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over
Ukraine in July 2014, Malaysia has been systematically blocked from
participating in the investigation, leaving an overwhelmingly pro-NATO
bloc in charge of the evidence, investigation and outcome as well as the
manner in which the investigation will be carried out.

Despite
the integral role Malaysia has played during several pivotal moments in
the aftermath of the disaster, it appears that the closer to the truth
the investigation should be getting, the further Malaysia itself is
being pushed from both the evidence and any influence it has on the
likely conclusions of the investigation. With the downed aircraft in
question being Malaysian, Malaysia as a partner in the investigation
would seem a given. Its exclusion from the investigation appears to be
an indication that the investigation’s objectivity has been compromised
and that the conclusions it draws will likely be politically motivated.First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/28/mh17-malaysia-s-barring-from-investigation-reeks-of-cover-up/

sábado, 29 de noviembre de 2014

"I have never felt more alone than when I was working there. I worked in
isolation and lived under constant surveillance. Amazon could mandate
overtime and I would have to comply with any schedule change they deemed
necessary, and if there was not any work, they would send us home early
without pay. I started to fall behind on my bills..." Via Guardian US

Nichole Gracely was once one of Amazon’s order pickers. Now she’s homeless. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

(TheAntiMedia) A recently published FBI report accidentally proves that while the police claim cops face growing threats from rowdy populations–like in Ferguson–the opposite is true. The report presents law enforcement deaths in 2013.

The report found that across the entire country, only 76 LEOs were
killed in “line-of-duty” incidents. 27 died as a result of “felonious”
acts and 49 officers died in accidents–namely, automobile (ironically, of the 23 killed in car accidents, 14 were not wearing seat belts–a
violation for which cops routinely ticket drivers). More officers die
from accidents than actual murders on the job. The report also outright admits that intentional murders of cops were down from 2004 and 2009.

In his book ‘The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective’, economist Angus Maddison noted that India was the richest country in the world and had controlled a third of global wealth until the 17th century [1]. Political unity and military security helped evolve a uniform economic system, increased trade and enhanced agriculture productivity. India was an exporter of spices, food grains, handicrafts, handloom products, wootz steel, musk, camphor, sandalwood and ivory items, among other things.

It was for good reason that Gandhi once stated the future of India lies in its villages. The village was the centre of a rural economy that was an economic powerhouse of entrepreneurialism. According to Sudhansu R Das, however, the British Raj almost dismantled this system by introducing mono crop activities and mill made products, and post independent India failed to repair the economic fabric [2]. As a result, successive administrations have ended up preparing relief packages from time to time and rural India is thus too often depicted a ‘basket case’.

In India, there is a plan to develop well-planned ‘smart villages’ (and cities) that have decent, modern infrastructure. The question remains, though, whether the government can restore the economic fabric of the village, which Das argues was once enshrined in a performing eco-system and a healthy social life based on fellow feelings and mutual co-operation.

The Cops of the World; and CHINA – Number Two and Trying Harder

Minqi Li is a Chinese political economist, world-systems analyst, and
historical social scientist, He did graduate studies at the University
of Massachusetts Amherst, taught political economy at York University in Toronto and is currently an associate professor of economics at the University of Utah.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a Canadian sociologist, columnist and
award-winning author who specializes on the Middle East and Central
Asia. He is the author of The Globalization of NATO (2012).

“The Thanksgiving story is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human…. The Mayflower’s cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans.”

This article was originally published on November 27, 2003, when Glen Ford was co-publisher of The Black Commentator.

The sudden reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has enormous implications for the War in Syria and beyond, with the potential to divide the Mideast and North Africa between rulers Abdullah and Thani in a more far-reaching way than Sykes and Picot did nearly 100 years ago.

With reported fines being levied on banks for gold price rigging, it is clear the gold market is manipulated. Why manipulate prices of the yellow metal downward? Holter says, “Gold is kryptonite to the dollar. The reason why gold and silver prices are manipulated down is to hold up the value of the dollar. And thus, the value to the Treasury market which keeps interest rates down. It allows us to keep interest rates lower than we normally could.”

In many cases the psychopathic killer-conquistadors that followed
Columbus, were initially welcomed, tolerated and even nurtured (a la the
mythical First Thanksgiving) – rather than being killed off as the
criminal invaders that they were. Trusting the intruders to return their
hospitality – in the spirit of the Christian Golden Rule – turned out
to have been a huge mistake, for within decades the slaughter began,
performed in the name of Christ – with the blessings of the accompanying
priests whose mission was to convert the heathen to Christianity under
threat of death.

For
the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the UN
Human Rights Office in the Middle East launches an online photo gallery
featuring the portraits of 12 women Palestinian Refugees from Syria and
their families: http://sm.ohchr.org/1y07x3s -

“My children are the center of my dreams at the moment. I hope and
dream of them having a better future, I hope they will be able to
continue their studies and go back to Syria. For their sake, I still
dare to dream,” says Mounira, now living in the Sabra Camp in Lebanon.

viernes, 28 de noviembre de 2014

The 30-year-old was reportedly wearing a reflective vest
when shot. Kufr Qaddum has been holding weekly protests for years
against the closure of its main access road.

Israeli troops shot an Italian national in the chest with live
ammunition Friday afternoon in the West Bank village of Kufr Qaddum,
Palestinian medical officials and the International Solidarity Movement
(ISM) reported.

An 18-year-old Palestinian protester was also hit with live fire, according to the reports.

The .22 caliber bullet entered 30-year-old Patrick Corsi’s chest and
remained lodged in his abdomen, a statement from ISM said. He remains
hospitalized in Nablus, according to Ma’an.

“The bullet entered Patrick’s chest near a main blood vessel, but
thankfully did not puncture it,” said ISM media coordinator Ally Cohen.

Italian
ISM activist Patrick Corsi in an ambulance after being shot in the
chest by Israeli forces, November 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy of ISM)

According to a new report by Reuters, Western-backed death squad fighters operating in Syria are receiving a portion of their training inside Qatar via the Qatari government and the United States.

The unnamed sources of the information reported to Reuters that the training was taking place near Doha, Qatar in between the border of Saudi Arabia and the American al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. Air Base in the Middle East. Al-Udeid is located inside a military zone protected by Qatari special forces.

According to Reuters, “Syrian rebel sources” have reported to the news agency that many of the fighters trained in Qatar belong to the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of death squad fanatics passed off as “moderate” by Western governments.

The training, as described by the sources, has been running for close to a year.

“I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S.
government will lead the American people in — and the West in general —
into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October
2001), as reported by CNN

What a strange and harrowing road we’ve walked since September 11,
2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have
gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a
representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a
freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state.

What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has
snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against
government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been
terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of
compliance. The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time—Osama bin
Laden, Saddam Hussein and now ISIS—but the end result remains the same:
our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in
exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security.

Renewables have produced more power in Scotland than nuclear, coal or gas for the first time ever AND WE THINK THAT'S AWESOME.

Whitlee wind farm on Eaglesham Moor just south of Glasgow. Renewables
energy overtook nuclear, coal and gas in an ‘historic’ first for the
industry in early 2014. Photograph: Global Warming Images/REX/Global
Warming Images/REX

We need your signature. PEACE YES POLITICIANS NO is an active facebook group working diligently to help the innocent victims of violent conflict. We recognize Sandra Bullock, Sean Penn and the Bill Gates Foundation as just a few of the leaders in recognizing the responsibility we all have towards our fellow man. We would like to request that each of you inspire and lead by example by donating $200.000 to Doctors without Borders or to the Red Cross to help care for the more than 3 million people (especially the children) who have been displaced and are suffering currently in Turkey and Jordan.

Every conflict has the potential to create a steady stream of refugees fleeing for their lives to safety. The Syrian conflict is no different. There are millions of woman and children who have been uprooted from their homes and are now in Turkey and Jordan in need of dire assistance to meet their most basic needs in life. If we won't help them, who will?

A new study finds highly malignant mumps infections in those successfully vaccinated against the virus...

A provocative new study titled, "Epidemic of complicated mumps in previously vaccinated young adults in the South-West of France," reveals that the MMR vaccine, despite generating high rates of presumably protective IgG antibodies against mumps, does not always translate into real-world immunity against infection as we have repeatedly been told. To the contrary, the study details cases where, despite the detection of high levels of antibodies against the mumps virus, patients contracted a malignant form of mumps that only rarely follows from natural, community acquired infection.
Vaccine Failure Is Well Established In the Scientific Literature

Many mainstream media websites helped a fake video go viral this month. The video showing a young Syrian boy running through sniper fire to save a little girl, was exposed as a fake when the Norwegian producer Lars Klevberg made the fact public. One of the stated aims of the Norwegian film makers was to “see how the media would respond to a fake video.” This article examines how that experiment went.

The western press very quickly accepted the video as real and used it to support the US administration’s narrative on Syria. Many top US news sources began to spread the story. Even though the producer said he explicitly added big hints that the video was fake, like the children surviving multiple gun shots.

Propagating false stories on Syria, is nothing new for the western press. In the lead up to the conflict many stories were exposed as frauds, such as the Anti-government activist “Gay Girl in Damascus” which turned out to be a middle-aged American man in Scotland. Syrian Danny Abdul Dayem which was frequently interviewed by CNN was using fake gun fire and flames in his interviews.

The fake sniper video wasn’t enough to support US government narratives by itself, as the now deleted original upload didn’t suggest the identity of the snipers. So the west’s media suggested that it was Syrian military snipers that were targeting the children without any evidence. Journalists failed to mention how they reached the conclusion that an actor in Malta was shot by the Syrian military. It may be that the western press is quick to trust pro-rebel sources, as the video was uploaded by the pro-rebel Sham Times along with their own twist.
First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/27/what-the-fake-syria-sniper-boy-video-tell-us-about-media-experts/

"Catalan process is not populist", states Meindert Fennema, expert in European populism

CNA

Barcelona (ACN).- The Emeritus Professor at the
University of Amsterdam and political scientist, Meindert Fennema, spoke
with the CNA about the Catalan independence process. According to this
recognised expert in populism throughout Europe, the Catalan process is
far from populist, and he explains why such a comparison is false. Not
only are the historical roots of both very different, but while populism
"started as an anti immigration movement", "for historical reasons,
Catalans have always embraced their immigrants". Moreover, populism is
traditionally anti-government and against European Union integration; "a
populist would not trust any government, neither Madrid nor the
Generalitat (the Catalan Government’s official name)", he emphasised.
However, the Catalan independence movement has always been democratic,
supportive of granting more powers to the Catalan Government and open to
inclusion within Europe. Dr. Fennema goes onto debunk the myth that
the Catalan independence movement is similar to the stance adopted by
the French populist and extreme-right party Front National, headed by
Marine le Pen; although this is a myth spread by a small minority. The
Dutch expert pointed out that given the religious and political
differences it is "nonsensical" to say that the Catalan movement looks
like Le Pen’s; it is "not true", he insisted. He admits that there are
elements of radicalization in Catalonia’s independence movement; however
he explains that they represent a small part and they come from the
"fringe" aspect of being a cultural and linguistic minority, like that
of the Frisian movement in his home country The Netherlands. Finally, he
explains why Spain is a more corrupt country than Holland, and how best
to fight against corruption today.

Only a few weeks later the leader of the Catalan Socialist Party
(PSC), Miquel Iceta, made a similar comparison regarding the plebiscite
elections that the President of the Catalan Generalitat ,Artur Mas, is
planning to call as ‘de facto’ referendum on independence taking into
account the Spanish Government’s blocking attitude for a mutually-agreed
vote,. According to Iceta, the plebiscite “reminded him” those
elections behind the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933. The PSC leader,
however, later corrected this and said that "any comparison with Nazism
is not accurate."

These comparisons are inadequate for Fennema and even "ridiculous".
According to the Dutch Emeritus Professor, the Catalan independence
movement cannot be described as populist, and his first reason is that
the two share very different attitudes towards immigration.

While "populism started as an anti immigrant movement" and became
later "anti European" with a common ground in "nationalism", the Catalan
movement, on the other hand, was pro-immigration. Furthermore, Spain
"had always exported labour rather than imported it", making inclusion
with Europe advantageous. Fennema points out that "for historical
reasons, Catalans have always embraced their immigrants", inducing them
to "learn Catalan and become Catalan". He argues that this "open-minded
strategy" to including immigrants within Catalonia is very different to
one adopted by a populist movement. He points out it is a
mutually-advantageous relationship, given that "the biggest enemy of
Catalonia is Madrid", so any one with a similar attitude "is welcomed”.
Moreover from the other perspective, "immigrants would benefit from more
independence, because Catalonia is a fairly wealthy nation", and the
"rest of Spain is not".

"A populist does not believe in any government, neither Madrid nor the Generalitat"

Not only are the historical roots and attitude to immigrants very
different, but the Catalan process is far from populist in its attitude
to government. While the Catalan process seeks self-governance, European
populism is anti governments of any kind. He admits that "there may be
populists in Catalonia" but "most Catalan parties are not populist".

The Catalan process has also been compared to extremist political
parties, including that of the French far-right party Front National,
led by Marine Le Pen. Dr. Fennema rejects this comparison however,
pointing out that to say that because both are "nationalist" does not
make them the same, this is a simplistic comparison. "It is very
nonsensical to say that since the Catalan movement is a nationalist
movement and Le Pen is a nationalist movement", they are similar; "that
is not true". He explains the two movements have different political
and religious backgrounds; "actually Catalan nationalism is very
republican" unlike the Front National, and while the latter has "very
strong catholic roots" in contrast to the Catalan movement.

If anything, the Catalan process is better compared to one of an
ethnic minority, and he uses the Frisians of his home country The
Netherlands as an example. "The Frisians have always had a good contact
with the Catalans", according to the Dutch Emeritus Professor, as both
are "a cultural minority". While there may be "elements of
radicalization" in both, he feels this to be a "fringe aspect" and
represent a minority within these movements.

European populists are "ethnic nationalists" opposed to the"transfer of power to Brussels"

Fennema identifies European populists as being "ethnic nationalists"
who want to close their borders to immigration, and do not want their
nation to "transfer power to Brussels". This is unlike what is happening
in Catalonia, which has an open stance towards immigration and wants to
increase European political and economic integration. This definition
fits more the attitudes of parties such as the Front National, or the
UKIP party of Nigel Farage in the UK, which share similar views
regarding immigration and corruption policies. For Fennema, and other
experts in the field, such as Sarah de Lange and Sjoerdje van Heerden,
authors of the book 'Not that different after all: radical right parties
and voters in Western Europe', it is a mistake to simply warn the
public of the dangers of such attitudes, what is needed is to understand
why they are gaining popularity and now they are being treated as
"normal". Another dangerous consequence of this, the experts point out,
is that as the right-wing becomes more mainstream, the centre parties
are being pushed into more radical policies in order to maintain the
balance.

Regarding their presence in the EU, UKIP, (which has representation
in the British parliament) is in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy
group in the European Parliament, shared with the Italian Five Stars
Movement, led by David Borelli. This October, the Euro-sceptics were
about to lose their place when a MEP left, leaving them short of the 7
members of different countries required for representation. In the end
however, the position was maintained when Polish MEP Robert Jaroslaw
Iwaszkiewicz joined his party with those of Farage and Borrelli.
However, Marine Le Pen did not join and she simply shares an operational
budget with a few other MEPs.

Spain "was always focused on becoming a part of Europe"

Fennema recalls that the particularities of Spain mean that the
profiles of the Front National or UKIP cannot be applied to Spanish
parties. This is both because Spain "was always focused on becoming a
part of Europe", and also because unlike England and France, it has
"always been a country which exported labour rather than imported it".
Moreover, the very different history makes the two incomparable; the
experience of the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship were key to
preventing the rise of populism in Spain, said the Emeritus Professor,
"because the Spaniards do not want any other kind of extremism". He
concludes that while the "Partido Popular [People’s Party] is a legacy
of Francoism, yet it has always behaved democratically", though "not
always completely" he adds.

"Corruption is stronger in Spain... because in Holland we have stronger institutions"

The rise of populism could be explained by citizens losing confidence
due to corruption increasingly leading states. In conclusion, Dr.
Fennema compared corruption within Spain and his national Holland. In
his opinion, strong institutions are key: there is more corruption in
Spain, "not because Spanish people are worse or more immoral than Dutch
people" but because "in Holland we have stronger institutions". The
expert from the University of Amsterdam believes it is through "checks
and balances" that we must lead the way forward, to "struggle against
corruption by establishing strong institutions that check each other".

The Khan al-Ahmar School serves the children of the Jahalin Bedouin
community in the West Bank and has been declared illegal by Israeli
authorities. It is now facing possible demolition. | http://trib.al/TIdDIyN

/Vinciane Jacquet/Transterra Media

The
straw and mud structure of the school is not solid. Inside the
classrooms, the walls are falling apart. While lack of funds is one
reason for the poor structure of the school, the other major factor is
an Israeli law banning the use of cement for construction by
Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank where the school is located.
Area C is the part of the West Bank under total Israeli military
control.

"The scale of the forced evictions has been astonishing; the Egyptian
authorities have thrown more than 1,000 families out of their homes in
just a matter of days, flouting international and national law. Shocking
scenes have emerged of homes in Rafah being bulldozed and bombed, with
entire buildings reduced to piles of rubble and families forcibly
evicted," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy
Director for the Middle East and North Africa http://bit.ly/1tw0BVq

Palestinian men in Gaza look at a house destroyed by Egyptian
security forces as they conducted an operation in the Egyptian city of
Rafah near the border with southern Gaza Strip on November 2, 2014.

A new study finds highly malignant mumps infections in those successfully vaccinated against the virus...

A provocative new study titled, "Epidemic of complicated mumps in previously vaccinated young adults in the South-West of France,"
reveals that the MMR vaccine, despite generating high rates of
presumably protective IgG antibodies against mumps, does not always
translate into real-world immunity against infection as we have
repeatedly been told. To the contrary, the study details cases where,
despite finding the presence of high levels of antibodies against the
mumps virus, patients contracted a malignant form of mumps that only
rarely follows from natural, community acquired infection.

Bad news: German Minister for Economic Affairs, Sigmar Gabriel declared
today that Germany should agree to CETA in spite of ISDS. He misregards
his party line and ignors hundreds of thousands of citizens that have
stated their opposition to the agreement.

Members of NKI are scheduled to attend the AMP annual conference in
Chicago this weekend. they will have a booth in the bazaar area, where
recently published literature and videos will be available. We invite
you all to booth #7.http://conference.ampalestine.org/

"There cannot be a repeat of the abuses that occurred during the
policing of protests in August. The right to peaceful demonstration is a
human right that must be protected vigilantly. Officers are duty-bound
to respect and facilitate that right, not impede it," said Steven W.
Hawkins, Amnesty International USA Executive Director